Battery storage costs have fallen by two-thirds since 2022 and the cell chemistry currently dominates the grid barely existed at scale five years ago, and the same disruption could be about to happen again. Meanwhile, the supplier market is fragmenting rather than consolidating and the biggest names today aren't guaranteed to stay on top.

Marek Kubik has watched these shifts happen from inside the industry since the early days. He joins Ed to explain why the balance of power in battery storage keeps changing, and what's coming next.

They cover

• Why battery storage costs have fallen two-thirds since 2022 - and why that could be about to reverse.
• The real reason CATL's battery market share has dropped from 32% to 20%.
• Why sodium-ion batteries could repeat LFP's rapid takeover of grid-scale storage.
• How battery container design is changing again, from bigger cells to taller stacks.
• The battery duration limit everyone assumed was fixed - until 16-18 hour systems broke it.

Want to dig deeper into battery cell chemistry and pricing trends? Ask Ko, Modo Energy's AI analyst

Chapters

00:00 Introduction

01:50 Saudi Arabia battery storage market update

02:16 UAE 24/7 renewable energy project

03:18 Solar plus battery storage economics explained

05:10 Battery storage prices: are we near the floor?

06:38 Lithium carbonate prices and battery raw material costs

08:22 Battery storage cost per kilowatt-hour explained

11:07 China battery prices and the race to $50/kWh

13:36 Sodium-ion batteries vs LFP: the next chemistry shift

21:18 CATL market share and battery supply chain competition

26:14 Battery procurement trends and container design innovation

29:39 Battery storage service, warranties and spare parts

30:54 Lessons from a decade in battery storage

32:09 Long duration energy storage and the Ofgem LDES scheme

34:48 How much renewable energy storage is enough?

38:18 Flow batteries, iron-air and CO2 energy storage

39:32 Sodium-ion's future in grid-scale battery storage

Battery storage costs have fallen by two-thirds since 2022 and the cell chemistry currently dominates the grid barely existed at scale five years ago, and the same disruption could be about to happen again. Meanwhile, the supplier market is fragmenting rather than consolidating and the biggest names today aren't guaranteed to stay on top.

Marek Kubik has watched these shifts happen from inside the industry since the early days. He joins Ed to explain why the balance of power in battery storage keeps changing, and what's coming next.

They cover

• Why battery storage costs have fallen two-thirds since 2022 - and why that could be about to reverse.
• The real reason CATL's battery market share has dropped from 32% to 20%.
• Why sodium-ion batteries could repeat LFP's rapid takeover of grid-scale storage.
• How battery container design is changing again, from bigger cells to taller stacks.
• The battery duration limit everyone assumed was fixed - until 16-18 hour systems broke it.

Want to dig deeper into battery cell chemistry and pricing trends? Ask Ko, Modo Energy's AI analyst:

Read the companion article: [companion article link — TBC]

Chapters

00:00 Introduction

01:50 Saudi Arabia battery storage market update

02:16 UAE 24/7 renewable energy project

03:18 Solar plus battery storage economics explained

05:10 Battery storage prices: are we near the floor?

06:38 Lithium carbonate prices and battery raw material costs

08:22 Battery storage cost per kilowatt-hour explained

11:07 China battery prices and the race to $50/kWh

13:36 Sodium-ion batteries vs LFP: the next chemistry shift

21:18 CATL market share and battery supply chain competition

26:14 Battery procurement trends and container design innovation

29:39 Battery storage service, warranties and spare parts

30:54 Lessons from a decade in battery storage

32:09 Long duration energy storage and the Ofgem LDES scheme

34:48 How much renewable energy storage is enough?

38:18 Flow batteries, iron-air and CO2 energy storage

39:32 Sodium-ion's future in grid-scale battery storage

GB Energy's £1 million solar investment freed up savings a Hull hospital had left on the table for years. It's an example of what can happen when a state-backed investor takes risks the market won't.

GB Energy calls itself an activist investor, built to put public money behind the frontiers where private capital moves too slowly: deepwater wind, long duration storage, public sector solar. The interesting question now is how far this model can scale, and how well it keeps sharing that risk with private capital as it grows.

Dan McGrail, CEO of Great British Energy, joins Ed Porter to explain how Britain's state-owned energy company decides where to invest, and why it's taking on the risks private money won't take first.

They cover:

- Why the "activist investor" model can justify riskier bets than pure-return investors would take - and where that logic stops making sense

- How to identify an investment "frontier": the areas of high ambition where private capital isn't moving fast enough to hit national targets

- What a queue of 50GW+ in unsolicited co-investment enquiries reveals about investor appetite for state-backed risk-sharing

- Why community-owned local energy can outperform national schemes on economic impact - one Orkney turbine now funds housing, buses and insulation

- Why chasing niche global market share, not local content quotas, may be the smarter industrial strategy for competing with China

Got a question about the build-out of batteries, solar or wind in GB or Europe? That's what Ko is for - sign up to try for free.

Transcript available here

You can watch or listen to new episodes every Tuesday. Transmission is a Modo Energy production. Your host is Ed Porter - Director EMEA & APAC at Modo Energy.

Chapters

00:00 £1m Solar Saving At A Hull Hospital

00:43 Guest Introduction: Dan McGrail, CEO Of GB Energy

01:11 GB Energy's Company Model And DESNZ Ownership

02:42 Investment Committee Discipline Vs Government Thinking

03:23 The "Frontiers" Strategy Explained

07:44 Floating Wind And The Deepwater Frontier

09:03 ScotWind, Rising Costs And Investor Confidence

12:33 Three Strategic Pillars: Offshore, Onshore, Local

19:56 Public Entrepreneurship Vs Maximising Profit

21:17 The Siemens Story: Why Private Capital Wants In

22:35 50GW Of Unsolicited Investment Enquiries

26:00 Electrically Qualified Workers And The Skills Gap

30:45 Shapinsay's Community-Owned Wind Turbine

34:34 Solar On Hospitals And Schools

37:16 Balancing Solar With Battery Storage

39:56 GB Energy's £8.3 Billion Budget: Progress So Far

41:14 Contrarian View: Industrial Legacy Over Cheap Energy

GB Energy's £1 million solar investment freed up savings a Hull hospital had left on the table for years. It's an example of what can happen when a state-backed investor takes risks the market won't.

GB Energy calls itself an activist investor, built to put public money behind the frontiers where private capital moves too slowly: deepwater wind, long duration storage, public sector solar. The interesting question now is how far this model can scale, and how well it keeps sharing that risk with private capital as it grows.

Dan McGrail, CEO of Great British Energy, joins Ed Porter to explain how Britain's state-owned energy company decides where to invest, and why it's taking on the risks private money won't take first.

They cover:

- Why the "activist investor" model can justify riskier bets than pure-return investors would take - and where that logic stops making sense

- How to identify an investment "frontier": the areas of high ambition where private capital isn't moving fast enough to hit national targets

- What a queue of 50GW+ in unsolicited co-investment enquiries reveals about investor appetite for state-backed risk-sharing

- Why community-owned local energy can outperform national schemes on economic impact - one Orkney turbine now funds housing, buses and insulation

- Why chasing niche global market share, not local content quotas, may be the smarter industrial strategy for competing with China

Got a question about the build-out of batteries, solar or wind in GB or Europe? That's what Ko is for - sign up to try for free.

Transcript available here

You can watch or listen to new episodes every Tuesday. Transmission is a Modo Energy production. Your host is Ed Porter - Director EMEA & APAC at Modo Energy.

Chapters

00:00 £1m Solar Saving At A Hull Hospital

00:43 Guest Introduction: Dan McGrail, CEO Of GB Energy

01:11 GB Energy's Company Model And DESNZ Ownership

02:42 Investment Committee Discipline Vs Government Thinking

03:23 The "Frontiers" Strategy Explained

07:44 Floating Wind And The Deepwater Frontier

09:03 ScotWind, Rising Costs And Investor Confidence

12:33 Three Strategic Pillars: Offshore, Onshore, Local

19:56 Public Entrepreneurship Vs Maximising Profit

21:17 The Siemens Story: Why Private Capital Wants In

22:35 50GW Of Unsolicited Investment Enquiries

26:00 Electrically Qualified Workers And The Skills Gap

30:45 Shapinsay's Community-Owned Wind Turbine

34:34 Solar On Hospitals And Schools

37:16 Balancing Solar With Battery Storage

39:56 GB Energy's £8.3 Billion Budget: Progress So Far

41:14 Contrarian View: Industrial Legacy Over Cheap Energy

Germany looks like Europe's most attractive battery storage market on paper: deep power price volatility, a fast-growing renewables build-out, and nearly three gigawatts of batteries already live. In reality, developers are navigating uncertain grid connection queues, gruelling commissioning phases, and a tolling market still working out how much risk is fair to price in.

Christina Hepp, Director Strategy, and Leandra Boes, Director Asset Management, both at Green Flexibility, join Ed Porter to unpack what building and operating batteries in Germany actually looks like once the PowerPoint slide meets the grid.

They cover:

- What a Flexible Connection Agreement actually is and why this kind of trade-off is fast becoming the norm in Germany.

- Why grid operators and battery companies have historically struggled to "speak the same language", and how a shared framework like REGIOlink helps translate one side's needs into the other's terms.

- What actually happens in the final weeks before a large-scale battery switches on for real: the software integration, testing and last-minute troubleshooting that never makes it into a press release.

- Why choosing to sell power on the open market versus locking in a steadier, pre-agreed deal is a much bigger and riskier decision than it sounds - and why Green Flexibility is betting on the option most peers shy away from.

- Just how enormous Germany's battery storage pipeline has become: enough grid connection requests queued up that regulators have had to start filtering out the projects that aren't actually going to happen.

Want the data behind this conversation? Ask Ko, Modo Energy's AI analyst:https://modoenergy.com/sign-up?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=podcast_apps&utm_campaign=green-flexibility&utm_content=ko_signup

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction

01:20 Common Misconceptions About Building Batteries in Germany

02:24 FID Prep and Commissioning: What Doesn't Make the Press Release

03:25 Flexible Connection Agreements (FCAs): The Ski Cannon Example

07:54 Germany's FCA Market Standardization

10:36 Battery Commissioning in Germany: Lessons From the Toughest Phase

14:29 Merchant vs Tolling: Germany's Battery Revenue Models

19:30 REGIOlink: Integrating Batteries Into Distribution Grids

23:11 Battery Data Sharing With Grid Operators

26:27 Germany's Project Development Shakeout

29:32 Co-Located Battery Projects: Pros and Cons

31:47 Germany's Zonal Pricing Debate for Batteries

34:32 Contrarian Views: Merchant Strategy and the German Power Market as "Barbie"

Germany looks like Europe's most attractive battery storage market on paper: deep power price volatility, a fast-growing renewables build-out, and nearly three gigawatts of batteries already live. In reality, developers are navigating uncertain grid connection queues, gruelling commissioning phases, and a tolling market still working out how much risk is fair to price in.

Christina Hepp, Director Strategy, and Leandra Boes, Director Asset Management, both at Green Flexibility, join Ed Porter to unpack what building and operating batteries in Germany actually looks like once the PowerPoint slide meets the grid.

They cover:

- What a Flexible Connection Agreement actually is and why this kind of trade-off is fast becoming the norm in Germany.

- Why grid operators and battery companies have historically struggled to "speak the same language", and how a shared framework like REGIOlink helps translate one side's needs into the other's terms.

- What actually happens in the final weeks before a large-scale battery switches on for real: the software integration, testing and last-minute troubleshooting that never makes it into a press release.

- Why choosing to sell power on the open market versus locking in a steadier, pre-agreed deal is a much bigger and riskier decision than it sounds - and why Green Flexibility is betting on the option most peers shy away from.

- Just how enormous Germany's battery storage pipeline has become: enough grid connection requests queued up that regulators have had to start filtering out the projects that aren't actually going to happen.

Want the data behind this conversation? Ask Ko, Modo Energy's AI analyst:https://modoenergy.com/sign-up?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=podcast_apps&utm_campaign=green-flexibility&utm_content=ko_signup

Transcript available here:https://modoenergy.com/transmission-podcast/0b5744a4-36e3-471d-bb95-16adefb96a93?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=podcast_apps&utm_campaign=green-flexibility&utm_content=article_page

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction

01:20 Common Misconceptions About Building Batteries in Germany

02:24 FID Prep and Commissioning: What Doesn't Make the Press Release

03:25 Flexible Connection Agreements (FCAs): The Ski Cannon Example

07:54 Germany's FCA Market Standardization

10:36 Battery Commissioning in Germany: Lessons From the Toughest Phase

14:29 Merchant vs Tolling: Germany's Battery Revenue Models

19:30 REGIOlink: Integrating Batteries Into Distribution Grids

23:11 Battery Data Sharing With Grid Operators

26:27 Germany's Project Development Shakeout

29:32 Co-Located Battery Projects: Pros and Cons

31:47 Germany's Zonal Pricing Debate for Batteries

34:32 Contrarian Views: Merchant Strategy and the German Power Market as "Barbie"

Many people picture a power purchase agreement as a 15-year mega-deal between a tech giant and a solar farm. In reality, 99% of UK PPAs look nothing like that. Power purchase agreements now sit behind a growing chunk of how the UK's electricity supply is sourced, and getting the price wrong could mean getting locked in well above the market rate for years.

Ed sits down with Rob Ogden, Founder and CEO of Renewable Exchange - one of the UK's largest PPA marketplaces - to unpack how PPAs are actually priced, why REGO certificate prices have swung from over £20 to just a few pence, and what happens to Europe's ageing wind fleet as 20-year subsidies run out and thousands of turbines are pushed onto the merchant market.

They cover:

• Why the "blue-chip" corporate PPA is the exception in a UK market dominated by short-term utility contracts, and how subsidy schemes from NFFO to CfD shaped that split.
• How negative and volatile power prices are forcing generators and off-takers to rethink how PPAs are priced and structured.
• The lessons from Covid and the Ukraine energy crisis on why locking into a 15-year PPA carries real pricing risk.
• Why matching thousands of small renewable generators with energy suppliers is such a hard problem to solve, and what it takes to build pricing infrastructure that can handle PPA demand spiking overnight.
• Why REGO prices have swung from over £20 to just a few pence, and the case for moving to 24/7 REGO matching.

Want to see what future power prices look like right now? Head to Modo Energy and ask Ko, Modo Energy's AI analyst — sign-up's free and takes seconds.

Transcript available here.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction: Is Your "100% Green" Tariff Really Green?

01:15 What People Get Wrong About Power Purchase Agreements

03:45 UK Power Purchase Agreement Market Structure

04:57 UK Renewable Subsidy History: NFFO, RO, FiT and CfD

07:16 PPA Regret: Negative Pricing and Value Erosion

09:49 Long-Term PPA Risk Through Covid and the Ukraine Crisis

14:32 Hybrid PPA and Flexibility Contract Structures

17:46 Renewable Exchange Origin Story: The Aberdeenshire Wind Farmers

19:53 Platform Scaling Pains: Rebuilding Three Times

22:41 Renewable Exchange's Impact on Consumer Energy Costs

24:30 Co-Located Solar and Battery Revenue Streams

26:58 REGO Explained: Renewable Energy Guarantee of Origin

32:16 The Case for 24/7 REGO Matching

36:27 Expanding to Germany: Legacy Wind Assets and Repowering

41:13 Contrarian Take: Ending Renewable Energy Subsidies

Many people picture a power purchase agreement as a 15-year mega-deal between a tech giant and a solar farm. In reality, 99% of UK PPAs look nothing like that. Power purchase agreements now sit behind a growing chunk of how the UK's electricity supply is sourced, and getting the price wrong could mean getting locked in well above the market rate for years.

Ed sits down with Rob Ogden, Founder and CEO of Renewable Exchange - one of the UK's largest PPA marketplaces - to unpack how PPAs are actually priced, why REGO certificate prices have swung from over £20 to just a few pence, and what happens to Europe's ageing wind fleet as 20-year subsidies run out and thousands of turbines are pushed onto the merchant market.

They cover:

• Why the "blue-chip" corporate PPA is the exception in a UK market dominated by short-term utility contracts, and how subsidy schemes from NFFO to CfD shaped that split.
• How negative and volatile power prices are forcing generators and off-takers to rethink how PPAs are priced and structured.
• The lessons from Covid and the Ukraine energy crisis on why locking into a 15-year PPA carries real pricing risk.
• Why matching thousands of small renewable generators with energy suppliers is such a hard problem to solve, and what it takes to build pricing infrastructure that can handle PPA demand spiking overnight.
• Why REGO prices have swung from over £20 to just a few pence, and the case for moving to 24/7 REGO matching.

Want to see what future power prices look like right now? Head to Modo Energy and ask Ko, Modo Energy's AI analyst — sign-up's free and takes seconds.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction: Is Your "100% Green" Tariff Really Green?

01:15 What People Get Wrong About Power Purchase Agreements

03:45 UK Power Purchase Agreement Market Structure

04:57 UK Renewable Subsidy History: NFFO, RO, FiT and CfD

07:16 PPA Regret: Negative Pricing and Value Erosion

09:49 Long-Term PPA Risk Through Covid and the Ukraine Crisis

14:32 Hybrid PPA and Flexibility Contract Structures

17:46 Renewable Exchange Origin Story: The Aberdeenshire Wind Farmers

19:53 Platform Scaling Pains: Rebuilding Three Times

22:41 Renewable Exchange's Impact on Consumer Energy Costs

24:30 Co-Located Solar and Battery Revenue Streams

26:58 REGO Explained: Renewable Energy Guarantee of Origin

32:16 The Case for 24/7 REGO Matching

36:27 Expanding to Germany: Legacy Wind Assets and Repowering

41:13 Contrarian Take: Ending Renewable Energy Subsidies